Olive hates going to sleep. It's not an ideal situation, but it's apparently fairly common at this age; there's too much going on in the world for her to be willing to actually lie down and be oblivious all night.

A consequence of this is that the bedtime ritual has a secret bonus stage: after the brushing and changing and pajamas and music and feeding to bed, after she has in fact slept for an hour or two, if she's feeling particularly obstinate, she'll wake up again wailing. She just needs to know that we're still there for her; she'll fall right back asleep again on my shoulder, and has occasionally done so without my even needing to remove her from her crib.

We've found her in all kinds of positions and orientations in the crib: prone, supine, and in crawling position. The main thing is that she's always been fundamentally horizontal. Tonight, for the first time, she was standing when I arrived.

It's such an iconic image: the toddler standing in their crib, rattling the railing, face contorted in rage that they woke up alone, again. Apparently it's not uncommon for kids this age to just stand up, do a few laps around the crib, and then either go back to sleep or cry until they have help doing so.

The rails are high enough still that we're not really worried about her toppling out, and she's not yet demonstrated any real ability to climb. Still, I think we're nearing the end of an era: it won't be long now before I have to take her bed apart and lower the mattress. When that happens, the last chance that we revert to the sidecar arrangement goes away forever. I don't think Olive knows any of this consciously—she certainly can't put any of it into words—but I wouldn't be surprised if she had an inkling of what's going on. One thing's for certain: she knows how to communicate her disapproval when she prefers that a situation were otherwise.